Roller adjustment for printing presses



Marc 8, 1955 L.- M. STEMPEL ROLLER ADJUSTMENT FOR PRINTING PRESSES Filed June 17, 1948 INVENTOR. Ldsz/o M .srempe/ M @w f ZA7 ATTORNEYS United States Patent ROLLER ADJUSTMENT FOR PRINTING PRESSES Laszlo M. Stempel, New York, N. Y., assignor to Laszlo M. Stempel, New York, and Albert Charles Nolte, Plandome, N. Y., as joint trustees Application June 17, 1948, Serial No. 33,637

3 Claims. (Cl. 101-148) This invention relates to printing presses and is illustratively disclosed in a printing press of the transfer or offset type.

In presses of the kind referred to it is common practice to provide a plate cylinder upon which an etched plate is mounted and to apply both water and a water repellant ink to the plate, the arrangement being such that the water repels the ink from the unetched areas and the ink repels the water from the etched areas.

In the illustrative machine, water is carried by an oscillating roller to a transfer roller, and thence to a pair of water applying rollers which run constantly in operative engagement with the transfer roller and with the plate on the plate cylinder.

In a mechanism of this kind, it is important that the applying rollers occupy at all times a uniform relation to the transfer roller and the plate cylinder throughout the engaged lengths of the rollers.

It is a primary object of the present invention to provide mechanism for adjusting the applying rollers individually about and relatively to the axis of the transfer roller.

It is a further important object to provide supporting means for an applying roller which admits of the ready removal of the applying roller from its position in the machine without disturbing the adjustment settings.

It is to be understood that the plate cylinder and the transfer roller are illustratively referred to herein because they form parts of the illustrative machine, but that the invention may also be used in connection with ink applying rollers and is intended to be claimed broadly enough to cover any structure in which its principle is utilized.

Other objects and advantages will hereinafter appear.

In the drawing forming part of this specification Fig. 1 is a view in sectional elevation taken upon the line 1-1 of Fig. 2 through mechanism which embodies the invention; and

Fig. 2 is a fragmentary view in side elevation showing the parts illustrated in Fig. l.

The illustrative printing press comprises a plate cylinder diagrammatically indicated at 1 in Fig. 2. The plate is supplied with ink by mechanism not shown, and is supplied with water by a pair of applying rollers 2 and 3 which run constantly in engagement with the plate. A water pick-up roller 4 runs in a water reservoir 5, which is carried by machine frame members 6 and 7. A roller 8, carried by arms 9, is oscillated by mechanism not shown between engagement with the water pick-up roller 4 and a transfer roller 10. The operating mechanism for the arms 9 forms no part of the present invention.

The rollers 2 and 3 not only run in constant engagement with the plate cylinder 1, but also run in constant engagement with the transfer roller 10. The transfer roller 10 comprises a sleeve member 11 and hub members 12, the latter being made fast upon shaft members 13 and 14. The shaft members 13 and 14 are revolubly mounted in bearing sleeves 15 and 16 which are carried by the frame members 6 and 7. Upon a keyed, reduced portion 17 of the shaft 14 gears 18 and 19 are held in place by means of a nut 20. The gear 19 is the driving gear for the roller 10, while the gear 18 transmits drive to other parts of the mechanism and is not important from the standpoint of the invention now being described.

The mountings of the rollers 2 and 3 are substantially alike, so that a description of one will substantially suflice for both. The mounting of the roller 2 will be described in detail, and no detailed description of the mounting of 2,703,525 Patented Mar. 8, 1955 ice the roller 3 will be given, but the same reference characters used in the description of the parts of the mounting of the roller 2 will be applied to the corresponding parts of the mounting for the roller 3 with the subscript a added in each instance.

The sleeves 15 and 16 are formed at their outer ends with flanges. Between these flanges and the associated frame members, carriers 21 for the roller 2 and 21a for the roller 3 are mounted upon the sleeve with capacity for independent rotative adjustment.

Each of the carriers 21 includes an arm 22 which has a circular opening 23 formed in it. In each of the openings 23 there is rotatably mounted a flanged sleeve 24. Each flanged sleeve 24 is formed with an eccentric opening 25 in which a bearing sleeve 26 is slidingly fitted.

Each bearing sleeve 26 engages at its inner end with a shoulder 27 formed on a shaft 28 by which the roller 2 is carried. The shouldered portion 27 of the shaft 28 is of larger diameter than the bore of bearing sleeve 26, but is of smaller diameter than the eccentric bore 25 of the sleeve 24. The bearing sleeve 26 is formed with a notch or recess 29 in its outer end which is the end remote from the associated shouldered portion 27 of the shaft 28. An abutment plate 30 extends across the end of the bearing sleeve 26 into the recess 29 and is removably held in place by screws 31 which are passed through the plate 30 and threaded into the arm 22.

The plates 30, together with the sleeves 26, normally determine the longitudinal position of the roller 2 and its shaft 28. The arrangement described, however, makes possible a quick and convenient removal of the roller 2 and its shaft from the machine without disturbing the position of the bushing 24, so that the roller 2, upon its reinsertion into the machine, bears the same relation to the cylinder 1 and roller 10 as it did before its removal.

This constitutes an important and advantageous feature of the present invention.

When it is desired to remove the roller 2, either one of the plates 30 is detached from the machine. This leaves the associated bearing sleeve 26 free to he slid outward, and the shouldered portion 27 of the shaft 28 free to enter the bore 25 of the sleeve 24 as the sleeve 26 recedes. Assuming that it is the left-hand plate 30 that has been removed, as the parts are viewed in Fig. 1, the leftward movement of the shaft is continued until the right-hand end of the shaft has been drawn clear of its support. The shaft may then be tilted to clear the righthand arm 22, and may be drawn toward the right to separate the roller and its shaft completely from the machine.

Each carrier 21 includes a projecting abutment 32 through which adjustment of the carrier about the axis of the roller 10 may be effected. Each abutment 32 is formed with a recess in one of its faces. A compression coil spring 33 bears at one end in the recess of the abutment 32 and at the other end in a recessed portion of a fixed abutment member 34, to urge the carrier in a counterclockwise direction as the parts are viewed in Fig. 2. A screw 35 threaded through a stationary abutment 36 bears against the abutment 32 in opposition to the spring 25 and may be turned to adjust the carrier about the axis of the roll 10.

With the described mechanism, the roller 2 can be adjusted to cooperate properly and uniformly throughout its length with both the cylinder 1 and the roll 10.

In order to do this, the arms 21 are first set in corresponding angular positions and the eccentric sleeves 24 are turned to adjust the opposite ends of the roller 2 to assume a desired operating relation to the roller 10. Each eccentric sleeve 24 is retained in a selected position by means of a set screw 37, which is threaded through the arm 22 and into engagement with the sleeve. This locates the axis of the roller 2 in parallelism with the axis of the roller 10 and at a proper operating distance from the axis of the roller 10.

The carriers 22 are next readjusted to carry the roller 2 into engagement with the plate cylinder 1. The screws 35 are readjusted until the roller 2 is caused to occupy a uniform desired relation to the plate cylinder 1. This completes the operative adjustment of the roller 2 relative to the cylinder 1 and the roller 10.

The carriers 21a differ from the carriers 21 in the fact that the arm 22 and the abutment 32 of the carrier 21 form substantially a right-angle with one another, while the arm 22a and the abutment 32a form substantially an angle of 135 with one another in the illustrative machine.

While the invention has been described with particular reference to a specific embodiment, it is to be understood that it is not to be limited thereto, but is to be construed broadly and restricted solely by the scope of the appended claims.

I claim:

1. In a printing press, in combination, a roller, a roller shaft having a shoulder, a bearing sleeve revolubly supporting the shaft and bearing at its inner end against the shoulder, a bearing sleeve support including a rotatively mounted member having an eccentric bore extending completely therethrough, in which bore the sleeve is slidingly fitted, the bore being large enough to pass the shouldered portion of the shaft, means for securing the bored member in difierent positions of rotative adjustment, an abutment member engaged with the outer end of the bearing sleeve in opposition to the engagement of the inner end of the sleeve with the associated shaft shoulder, and fastening means removably securing the abutment member in fixed position on the bearing sleeve support, the construction and arrangement being such that the sleeve can be withdrawn to permit removal of the shaft without disturbing the adjusted setting of the bored member.

2. In a printing press, the combination as set forth in claim 1 which includes the further feature that the bearing sleeve is formed with a recess at its outer end and the abutment member extends into the recess normally to prevent lengthwise outward movement of the sleeve and to llmit rotational movement of the sleeve.

3. In a printing press, in combination, a roller, supporting shaft members for the roller, having outwardly facing shoulders at opposite ends of the roller, bearing sleeves revolubly supporting the shaft members and bearing at their inner ends against the respective shoulders, bearing sleeve supports including rotatively mounted, ec centrically bored members having eccentric bores extending completely through them, in whose eccentric bores the sleeves are slidingly fitted, the bores being large enough to pass the respective shoulders, means for securing the bored member in different positions of rotative adjustment, abutment members engaged with the outer ends of the respective bearing sleeves in opposition to the engagement of the inner ends of the sleeves with the associated shaft shoulders, and fastening means removably securing each abutment member in fixed position on the associated bearing sleeve support, the construction and arrangement being such that either sleeve can be withdrawn to permit removal of the shaft without disturbing the adjusted se ting of the associated bored member.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,029,239 Smith June 11, 1912 1,816,948 Wood Aug. 4, 1931 2,369,814 Worthington Feb. 20, 1945 2,460,504 Huebner Feb. 1, 1949 FOREIGN PATENTS 255,203 Great Britain July 22, 1926 

